Our Team

Joy S. Kaufman, PhD is a Professor and Deputy Chair for Professional Development, Department of Psychiatry Yale School of Medicine, Executive Director of the Yale Consultation Center and of YaleEVAL. Trained as a Clinical and Community Psychologist, Dr. Kaufman conducts large-scale, multi-level evaluations of health service delivery systems, provides consultation to governmental and community organizations regarding these evaluations, and carries out related research. These evaluations take place in under-resourced communities; involve close partnerships with state and municipal governments, community organizations, and other public stakeholders; and generate data that informs program and policy development. A unique feature of her work is the training of public stakeholders to evaluate the services they receive or to utilize data so that they can provide rigorous and systematic feedback to improve services and participate in decision-making about their community. Dr. Kaufman's research interests include the identification of contextual factors that impact outcomes for individuals with emotional and behavioral difficulties.

Dr. Ishita Sunita Arora is an Associate Research Scientist at Yale University's Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Arora is a clinical and community psychologist with expertise in program development, program evaluation, implementation science, leadership development, violence prevention, community-partnered research, and mental healthcare intervention. Dr. Arora completed her predoctoral fellowship at Yale University’s Department of Psychiatry - The Consultation Center (TCC) and Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC). Dr. Arora earned her Ph.D. in Clinical and Community Psychology from the University of Maryland and a Master’s in Liberal Studies and Leadership from Ashoka University, India. In India, she worked as a therapist for street children and unhoused families for Salaam Baalak Trust.

Ashley Clayton, MA, is the Research Manager of the Family Violence Research Program in the Sullivan Lab. Trained in community psychology, Ashley has developed and evaluated various community-based mental health interventions. Ashley ventured into the field of community psychology through a determination to use her first-hand experience with mental illness for good and her dedication to social justice. Ashley has extensive training in qualitative and quantitative research, with particular expertise in community-based participatory research, questionnaire development, and stigma. She is a mental health activist and has published numerous research papers on the social inclusion of individuals living with severe mental illness, maternal mental health, recovery-oriented and person-centered care, and healthcare narratives and essays. She is the Visual Arts Editor of The Perch, an Arts & Literary Journal published by Yale’s Program for Recovery & Community Health (PRCH).

Dr. Connell’s research interests address contextual risk and protective processes that influence developmental and related outcomes for child and adolescent populations exposed to adversity. He has a particular focus on populations in contact with the child welfare and children’s mental health systems, including the intersection between parental substance use and child welfare (e.g., maltreatment and foster placement) outcomes.

Elizabeth H. Connors, PhD, received her degree in Clinical Child and Community Psychology from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and is a licensed clinical psychologist. She is Director of School Mental Health Implementation Consultation and Research at The Consultation Center at Yale. Her research program focuses on improving the quality of mental health promotion, prevention and intervention services for children, adolescents and their families in critical access points such as schools and primary care settings. Dr. Connors is conducting stakeholder-informed research to discover the most practical ways to make school mental health treatment more student- and family- centered with ongoing, collaborative use of progress data. Dr. Connors is also involved in community-partnered program evaluation and quality improvement consultation and coaching to school, district and state teams to improve their mental health service capacity and performance. She collaborates with the University of Maryland National Center for School Mental Health to advance research, practice, policy and training about comprehensive school mental health system quality and sustainability nationwide.

Maria Christina Crouch (Deg Hit'an and Coahuiltecan Tribes), PhD, is a clinical-community psychologist and an Assistant Professor Adjunct at Yale School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry. Her clinical work and program of research is focused on the intersection of trauma-informed care, evidence-based practices, and practice-based evidence (Indigenous approaches) to address alcohol and drug misuse, and related health impacts of social determinants among American Indian and Alaska Native communities from a cultural, strengths-based approach.

Cindy A. Crusto, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology Section), Yale University School of Medicine, is Associate Dean for Gender Equity and Director of the Office for Women in Medicine and Science and the Director of Program Evaluation and Child Trauma Research at The Consultation Center.Dr. Crusto has more than 20 years of experience in developing, implementing, and evaluating preventive interventions in schools and community agencies. She also has extensive experience providing training and technical assistance to schools and to community-based organizations on the evaluation of prevention programs. She is interested in culturally relevant interventions for children from racial/ethnic minority and low-income backgrounds and in school-based behavioral health services. Dr. Crusto's research examines the impact of family violence on children and the ecological influences on child and family well-being, and includes rigorous evaluations of community-based initiatives involving substance use and violence prevention, and the promotion of school readiness. Dr. Crusto earned a B.A. in psychology from Vassar College, an M.A. in clinical-community psychology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a Ph.D. in clinical-community psychology from the University of South Carolina. She completed pre-doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships in clinical-community psychology at Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry.

Derrick Gordon, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology Section), Child Study Center and Public Health at Yale University School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Program on Male Development in the Division of Prevention and Community Research of the Department of Psychiatry, and is a Core scientist in the Community Research Core of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA). Dr. Gordon has considerable experience in intervention and prevention development having served as an investigator on several federal, NIH, and state funded projects and studies focused on those factors that either support or undermine men transitioning from prison back to the community; the engagement of low-income, non-custodial fathers; the identification and service of adolescent fathers committed to child protection services; and men mandated to batterer intervention groups in the community. His funding portfolio includes NIH, foundation, HHS, local government, and community-based programs. Dr. Gordon’s work with men has and continues to focus on increasing the health of men and their positive involvement in family and community life. In his mentorship role, pre- and post doctoral fellows get to explore with Dr. Gordon how issues like adolescent fatherhood, low income fatherhood status, transitioning from prison to the community, and men’s access and use of health care services impact their efforts to be healthy community members. Overall Dr. Gordon in his research seeks to identify those factors that enhance the access and use of preventive and indicated health care services by men on the “fringes.”

Amy Griffin is the Director of Health Evaluation Initiatives at The Consultation Center and the Director of Strategy and Operations for YaleEVAL. Ms. Griffin holds a master’s degree in Communications and has advanced training in Family and Child Ecology and nonprofit management. Ms. Griffin brings more than 20 years of experience providing consultation on the development and implementation of program evaluations to nonprofit agencies, coalitions, foundations, and local and state departments. She trains nonprofit and state-level organizations in evaluation principles, techniques, and design, and frequents as an invited speaker at universities on evaluation, consultation, and group facilitation. Most recently, Ms. Griffin was selected by the Connecticut Department of Public Health (CTDPH) to provide specialized training to health practitioners in the state through a grant opportunity from the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors.

Frances is a postdoctoral fellow in the NIDA T32 program through the Division of Prevention and Community Research in the Department of Psychiatry. She earned a PhD in clinical (community) psychology from Bowling Green State University and is a registered board-certified art therapist. Frances’ research and clinical-community interventions focus on increasing health equity for people in recovery with intersecting marginalized identities. Branches of her research focus on the development and evaluation of 1) peer-led programs in healthcare organizational settings, 2) individual- and systems-level interventions to reduce stigma and structural discrimination towards people in recovery, and 3) scalable, digital or arts-based interventions for health promotion and prevention of mental health and substance use challenges.

Ms. Henry received her Bachelor's in Psychology from Central Connecticut State University in 2012 and her Master's in Social Work from the University of Connecticut in 2019. She has an interest in social justice, advocacy, criminal justice reform, research and social policy. Her research experience began in her Psychology courses and continued on throughout her time at the School of Social Work as she worked as a Research Assistant to the BSW Program Director, was awarded funds for a research project conducted on a travel study to Puerto Rico, and worked as a Research and Assessment Specialist to Florida State University's Institute for Justice Research and Development. She has contributed to two pending publications on environmental disaster's and their impact on domestic violence in Puerto Rico and microaggressions during a travel study experience.

Ana Hernandez. B.S. is a Research Assistant in the Family Violence Research Program in the Sullivan Lab, wherein Ana researches intimate partner violence (IPV), firearm exposure, post-traumatic stress, substance use, and HIV/sexual risk. Ms. Hernandez’s research interests center on trauma and posttraumatic stress responses. More specifically, she is interested in the retrieval of traumatic memories of bilingual and/or multilingual speakers and its effect on memory details. Throughout her research career, Ms. Hernandez has developed expertise in survey programming, trauma-informed interviewing practices, and cultural adaptation and translation of research materials. Ms. Hernandez holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Connecticut where she completed training in the Research Assistant Program through the Office of Undergraduate Research. Throughout her baccalaureate training, she worked in the Dr. Meyer’s Language and Brain Lab researching neurobiology and the influence of talker idiolect on phonetic adaptation. Additionally, Ms. Hernandez has experience researching health risk factors for cardiovascular disease from her work with Dr. Bruce Blanchard in the Department of Allied Health Sciences.

Luis Miguel Mestre, Ph.D., MS, is a Post Doctoral Fellow at The Consultation Center, Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Mestre's got his Ph.D. in Epidemiology with a minor in Data Science from Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington; his doctoral training was focused on quantitative epidemiology, statistics, obesity, aging, cigarette smoking, and health disparities. Dr. Mestre's current work as a post-doctoral fellow is in substance use, especially cigarette smoking, health disparities and substance use, and substance and obesity from a psychosocial perspective. Recent projects include polysubstance use in marginalized groups, clinical trials intervention in smoking cessation, food aversion, and eating disorders and their interaction with tobacco use, and substance use and obesity.

Joanna Meyer joined The Consultation Center in 2014 and currently serves as Assistant Director of Child Wellbeing and Education Research and Co-Director of the Partnership for Early Education Research (PEER). Meyer partners with education stakeholders to conduct research and evaluation studies that can inform the improvement of education systems and practices. Research interests include educational equity, early childhood education, the transition to K-12 education, social-emotional learning, family engagement, multilingual learners, STEM education, improvement science, and evaluation. Meyer is also committed to the dissemination of research findings to broad audiences, including educators, parents, education leaders, and policymakers, as well as researchers. Along with ten years in research-practice partnerships, Meyer brings ten years of experience as an educator to her work, a foundation that helps her to develop mutually-beneficial relationships among organizations and advocate for diverse stakeholder interests.Meyer’s teaching experience spans three school districts, a Job Corps center, and two experiential learning settings. As a high school STEM teacher, Meyer led her school’s decennial accreditation process with New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), and coordinated the design and pilot of six school-wide rubrics focused on interdepartmental learning expectations. Meyer also served as a fellow of the Maine Writing Project, a mentor teacher for the teacher preparation program at the University of Maine's College of Education and Human Development, and a coordinating teacher for the NSF GK-12 program at the University of Maine's College of Engineering. In 2011, Meyer transitioned from the classroom to the Maine Physical Sciences Partnership (MainePSP), a NSF-funded collaboration between the University of Maine and 12 local school districts that focused on improving the science teaching and learning in secondary and post-secondary classrooms. At the MainePSP, Meyer provided professional development and leadership to teachers who were implementing one or more year-long MainePSP curricula in their grade 6-9 classrooms and engaged in STEM education research, roles that required balancing the needs and perspectives of researchers and practitioners. These experiences informed Meyer’s interest in school improvement, teacher leadership, and education research.